Measurement in the psychology of religion and spirituality

1
Measurement in the psychology of religion and
spirituality
2
The current state

• The ability to reliably measure is a key
  indicator of the fields health and maturity.
• Instruments are reasonably effective and
  available in sufficient variety for almost any
  task in the psychology of religion
  (Gorsuch,1984).
• However, success can reinforce an interest in
  measurement itself and not the objects of
  measurement (Gorsuch,1984).

3
Measurement

• Gorsuch (1990) contended that new scales should
  only be developed if a need is established on one
  of four bases
• Existing measures are not psychometrically
  adequate to the task
• Conceptual or theoretical issues demand
  modification of existing measures
• No existing measures appear useful within a
  clinical population
• There are no measures available for particular
  constructs.

4
Key papers

• Gorsuch, R.L. (1984). Measurement The boon and
  bane of investigating religion. American
  Psychologist, 39, 228-236.
• Gorsuch, R.L. (1990). Measurement in psychology
  of religion revisited. Journal of Psychology and
  Christianity, 9, 82-92.

5
Measurement

• Gorsuchs advice has been largely ignored with
  many new measures unnecessarily duplicating
  existing measures.
• Hill and Hood (1999) reviews 125 scales
• Researchers are encouraged to refrain from
  constructing new measures and instead to utilize
  (modify) existing measures.

6
Key books

• Hill, P.C. Hood, R.W. Jr. (1999). Measures of
  religiosity. Birmingham, Ala Religious Education
  Press. (1 copy - BR110.M42).

7
Key books

• (Each chapter comprises cluster of several
  individual measures)1. Scales of Religious
  Belief and Practice2. Scales of Religious
  Attitudes3. Scales of Religious Orientation4.
  Scales of Religious Development5. Scales of
  Religious Commitment and Involvement6. Scales of
  Religious Experience7. Scales of Religious/Moral
  Values8. Multidimensional Scales of
  Religiousness9. Scales of Religious Coping and
  Problem-Solving10. Scales of Spirituality and
  Mysticism11. Scales of the God Concept12.
  Scales of Religious Fundamentalism13. Scales of
  Views of Death / Afterlife14. Scales of Divine
  Intervention / Religious Attribution15. Scales
  of Forgiveness16. Scales of Institutional
  Religion17. Scales of Religious Constructs

8
Hurdles and advances

• Although the variety of scales do a respectably
  good job of measuring religiousness, collectively
  they are not without limits and deficiencies.
• Some limitations due to the inherently complex
  nature of religious and spiritual constructs.
• Other deficiencies are the responsibility of the
  scientific community.
• However, researchers have made systematic strides
  in addressing many shortcomings.

9
Exercise

• NIRO (5 mins)

10
Conceptual clarity

• Allports (1950) intrinsic-extrinsic (I-E)
  religious orientation model provided the foremost
  research framework in the psychology of religion.
• Allport posited that intrinsic faith was a master
  motive in life, an end in itself, a religion to
  be lived and not just used.
• In contrast an extrinsic faith motivation tends
  to use religion for ones own self-interest, a
  means to some other end, a religion to be used
  rather than lived.

11
Conceptual clarity

• Much subsequent scientific effort was spent on
  issues of measurement despite the fact that the
  underlying theory had not been sufficiently
  developed.
• For example, Kirkpatrick and Hood (1990) claimed
  that I-E model was theoretically impoverished.

12
Key papers

• Maltby, J., Lewis, C. A. (1996). Measuring
  intrinsic and extrinsic orientation to religion
  Amendments for its use among religious and
  non-religious samples. Personality and Individual
  Differences, 21, 937-946.
• Joseph, S. Lewis, C. A. (1997). The Francis
  Scale of Attitude Towards Christianity Intrinsic
  or extrinsic religion? Psychological Reports,80,
  609-610.

13
Conceptual clarity

• In the past, despite the variety of research,
  little had been drawn from well-established
  theoretical models in mainstream psychology.
• More recently, there is greater application from
  such mainstream literature as the psychology of
  coping, attachment theory, developmental
  psychology, and personality theory.

14
Sample Representativeness

• Research in psychology generally has been
  afflicted with unrepresentative samples, most
  notably convenience samples of young college
  students.
• The same applies to research in psychology of
  religion.
• However, in addition Protestantism dominates the
  samples found in much of the literature.

15
Sample Representativeness

• Such domination can be problematic when it is
  desirable to use a scale with a more pluralistic
  population

16
Cultural Sensitivity

• Measures sometimes do not reflect sensitivity to
  cultural variables.
• Not only is there a problem of Protestant
  over-representation but also one of white,
  middle-class, and U.S. over-representation.
• Additionally, there is a need for cultural
  sensitivity when creating new or modifying
  existing measures to generalize research to
  non-Western religious traditions.

17
Sustained Research Programmes

• A major problem within the psychology of religion
  has been the failure to develop sustained
  research programmes using standardized measures.
• Exceptions are religious questing (Batson,
  Shoenrade, Ventis, 1993) mysticism (Hood,
  1975) religious coping (Pargament, 1997)
  intrinsic-extrinsic religious orientations see
  Hood et al., (1996) for review.

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Key books

• Kay, W.K. Francis, L.J. (1996). Drift from the
  Churches Attitude toward Christianity during
  childhood and adolescence. Cardiff, Wales
  University of Wales Press. (3 copies -
  BV639.Y7K28)

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Sustained Research Programmes

• Without a clear conceptual understanding of
  religion and spirituality it is difficult to
  generate and sustain research programmes.
• Funding for research on religion has, until
  recently, been virtually non-existent.
• Much religious research has been conducted within
  the context of other research agendas
  frequently involving single-item measures of
  religion.

20
Key website
21
Sustained Research Programmes

• Many scales have not been used beyond their
  initial introduction.
• In such cases any validity assessments or
  normative data are usually based upon a single
  sample.
• However, recently there is repeated usage of some
  measures, particularly those more recently
  developed.

22
Alternatives to self-report measures

• The limitations of self-report measures apply
  equally to the psychology of religion
• Alternatives include
• Attitude accessibility - measured by response
  time (Hill, 1994)
• Pictures to assess religious coping (Pendleton
  et al., 2002)
• Physiological indicators such as PET scans
  (Newberg et al., 2001)

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A Hierarchical Approach

• Tsang and McCullough (2003) propose that religion
  can be viewed from two levels
• Level 1 (dispositional) reflects broad individual
  differences in highly abstracted trait like
  qualities
• The goal of measurement at level 1 is to assess
  broad dispositional differences in religious
  tendencies or traits so that one might draw
  conclusions about how religious a person is
  (Tsang McCullough, 2003, p. 349)

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A Hierarchical Approach

• Level 2 (functional) is the operational level
  in that people manifest tremendous diversity in
  how they experience religious realities and their
  motivations for being religious
• Level 2 measures assess subdimensions of the
  general religiousness factor

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Four Criteria

• Four criteria used for evaluating scales are
  summarized in Table 3.1
• Theoretical basis
• Scale should have theoretical underpinning
• Researcher should have a clear theoretical basis
  for the research at hand.
• Representative sampling generalization
• Scales rare for non-Western traditions

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Four Criteria

• Reliability
• Generally assessed by internal consistency and
  test-retest reliability.
• Validity
• Assessed by convergent, factorial, criterion, and
  content validity.
• Problems due to non-representative samples.
• Problems due to lack of sustained research across
  different samples.

27
Key papers

• Lewis, C.A., Cruise, S.M., Lattimar, R. (2007).
  Temporal stability of the Francis Scale of
  Attitude toward Christianity short-form among 10-
  to 12-year-old English children Test-retest data
  over 15 weeks. Archive für Religionspsychologie,
  29, 259-267.
• Lewis, C.A., Cruise, S.M., Mc Guckin, C.
  (2005). Temporal stability of the Francis Scale
  of Attitude toward Christianity short-form
  Test-retest data over one week. Psychological
  Reports, 96, 266-268.
• Lewis, C.A., Francis, L.J., Ziebertz, H.-G.,
  Kwiran, M. (2005). Reliability and validity of a
  German translation of a short scale of attitude
  toward Christianity. Individual Differences
  Research, 3, 205-212.
• Francis, L.J., Kerr, S., Lewis, C.A. (2005).
  Assessing attitude toward Christianity among
  adolescents in South Africa The Francis Scale.
  South African Journal of Psychology, 35, 147-155.
  

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Discussion of selected scales

• Level 1 Measures of dispositional religiousness
• Scales that assess general religiousness or
  spirituality
• Spiritual Transcendence Scale (Piedmont, 1999)
  and Mysticism Scale (Hood, 1975) measure general
  spiritual orientations without reference to a
  specific religious tradition
• Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS Paloutzian
  Ellison, 1982) has been used in hundreds of
  studies.

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Discussion of selected scales

• Scales that assess religious or spiritual
  commitment
• Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI 10
  Worthington et al., 2003) has been tested on
  individuals from a variety of religious
  traditions
• Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith
  Questionnaire (SCSRFQ Plante Boccaccini, 1997)
  is used in the general population not just
  religious

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Discussion of selected scales

• Scales that assess religious or spiritual
  development
• Faith Maturity Scale (Benson et al., 1993)
  emphasises behavioural manifestations of faith
  rather than belief content
• Spiritual Assessment Inventory (Hall Edwards,
  1996) has a strong theoretical base but is
  limited to a Western Christian context.

31
Discussion of selected scales

• Level 2 Measures of functional religiousness
• Scales that assess religious social
  participation
• Religious Involvement Inventory (Hilty Morgan,
  1985) includes a 14 item church involvement
  scale
• Attitude toward the Church Scale (Thurstone
  Chave, 1929) requires revision because of dated
  wording.

32
Discussion of selected scales

• Scales that assess religious or spiritual private
  practice
• Buddhist Beliefs and Practices Scale (Emavardhana
  Tori,1997) assesses agreement with Buddhist
  teachings
• Religious Background and Behaviour Scale (Connors
  et al., 1996) is increasingly used in various
  research programmes.

33
Discussion of selected scales

• Scales that assess religion as a motivating force
• Revised Religious Orientation Scale (Gorsuch
  McPherson, 1989) is probably the single best
  measure of religious orientation
• Quest Scale (Batson Shoenrade, 1991) emphasises
  the positive role of doubt.

34
Discussion of selected scales

• Scales that assess religious or spiritual
  experiences
• Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (Underwood,
  1999) makes spirituality its central focus
• Measure of Religious Strain (Exline et al., 2000)
  measures religious struggles.

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Discussion of selected scales

• Multidimensional Measures
• Multidimensional Measure of Religion and
  Spirituality (The Fetzer Institute/National
  Institute of Aging Working Group, 1999) has
  appropriate reliability and validity.

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